Review of power project sent to AG

Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio yesterday tossed to the Attorney General’s Office for review the results of an independent evaluation that upheld a previous decision of the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation to award the $120 million power contract to Marubeni-Sithe.

The governor met with officials of the utilities company, the public auditor and the AGO to discuss the next step the CNMI would take to resolve the remaining kinks impeding the construction of the 80-megawatt power plant on Saipan.

Tenorio told reporters a decision was held off until the AGO comes up with recommendations whether to proceed with the second phase of the evaluation.

CUC announced Friday that Burns & McDonnell, an independent engineering hired the utilities corporation to review the 13 proposals from power producers, concurred the decision of the in-house selection committee to award the deal to the Japanese industrial giant and its US partner.

An evaluation by the Kansas-based engineering firm show that Marubeni-Sithe topped the new round of review, followed by Enron International and Hawaiian Electric. It also recommended a complete review of the proposals within the competitive range before awarding the power contract.

Nine companies out of the 13 independent power producers that submitted proposals to build the power plant have been identified within the range by Burns & McDonnell. Among these were the Saipan Power Partner, Panda, the Tomen consortium, Daewoo, ABB Energy Venture and PMIC-Ogden, whose protest last year against the procurement process stopped the awarding of the power deal.

Burns & McDonnell was tapped in January in response to a recommendation put forward by the Office of the Public Auditor seeking an independent review.

Two other protests, filed separately by Enron and a consortium of Alsons, Tomen, Singapore Power and Tan Holdings Corp., alleging technical deficiencies and incompetence of the CUC selection committee are still pending.

Questions on the results of the bidding have pushed back the plans, considered the largest ever deal in the Northern Marianas. The power project, which construction was initially scheduled for December, is envisioned to increase the capacity of the existing power plants by year 2000.

CUC Executive Director Timothy P. Villagomez said he hopes the remaining issues will be resolved as soon as possible to avoid more delays in the project.

“We’re hoping to do it within the year. We want to resolve the protests so there will no more delays,” Villagomez said.